


The Trident's Points

by greygerbil



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, Dancing, Holiday festivities, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24544417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: Stannis does not like masquerades, but Davos makes this festivity bearable. However, not only friendly faces hide behind disguises.
Relationships: Stannis Baratheon/Davos Seaworth
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	The Trident's Points

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



“This is ridiculous,” Stannis muttered, pulling at a sharp-edged seashell that pressed uncomfortably against his throat.

Davos smiled at him, though there was none of the mockery in his expression that Stannis felt he so richly deserved. They had celebrated the Stranger’s Night in Baratheon lands as well, but masquerades had never been to his taste and usually he had gotten away with wearing something simple, like a long, hooded cloak that indicated a traveller, or a guard’s livery. However, as this was Robert’s first year seated firmly on the Iron Throne, the land reasonably at peace, he had decided that Stannis would have to represent the family and honour the Stranger properly.

“Sulk in a corner if you want, but you’ll do it in a costume,” he had told Stannis.

Robert had chosen his costume, too, which Stannis figured was to punish him for his obstinacy on the matter, though in truth he wouldn’t have known what to pick, anyway. As Master of Ships, Stannis was to be a merling king. He wore seashells on strings around his wrists and neck, only artfully tattered rags of golden thread over his upper body, and someone had wasted an inordinate amount of time sewing pants and working boots with hundreds of thin, small, silver scales attached, shimmering like a fish’s hide. The trident in his hand was pure gold, a ceremonial but sharp and weighty weapon taken out of the stores of old Targaryen heirlooms under the Red Keep. A similarly golden circlet inlaid with blue gems sat in his dark hair.

“I think you make a fine merling, my lord,” Davos said.

Davos himself wore a much cheaper costume that Stannis thought was a lot more handsome, though in fairness, he always thought Davos so. He had dressed as a pirate, with an embroidered shirt wide and unlaced at the collar, high black boots, and a colourful vest and open jacket, the latter of which reached down to his knees and moved behind him like a cape. Added to that were all the rings and chains he had been able to get his hands on, most of them bronze and iron tat with glass stones, but that befit the role well enough. Colourful beads and pieces of cloth were braided into his hair. He’d recently talked about having it cut soon, but Stannis liked it this long, down to the shoulder blades, which of course he had not told Davos. It was not his business what he did with his hair.

“People will say you’re not wearing any costume at all, playing a brigand,” Stannis pointed out, mouth set in a grim line as he led the way out of his quarters.

“If they think a smuggler favours clicking jewellery and bright colours, they must not have thought about it very long. In any case, they will find some fault with whatever I wear.”

Davos sounded at peace with this. He would have to be to stand the royal court. When they were at Dragonstone, he was still among Stannis’ retainers, quite a few of whom were only alive because of his onions, and the servants and guardsmen got along well with the lowborn knight. The Red Keep’s viper pit of nobles was a much more hostile place.

“Stannis! Ser Davos!”

Barrelling down the corridor came Renly. He was wrapped in a stag fur, wearing an impressive set of real antlers on his head, likely strapped to a thin piece of wood or iron, which was, however, completely hidden by his dark hair. He stopped short before running them over, grinning brightly.

“What do you think?”

“Those antlers will weigh on your neck too much,” Stannis said with a frown.

Who had let Renly wear them, anyway? Some adult should have pointed out to the boy that he would grow uncomfortable half an hour into the festivities dressed up like this.

“They look fearsome, though,” Davos said.

With a triumphant shout, Renly lowered his head and poked Davos’ side. Davos chuckled as he danced out of the way of the would-be stag, hands raised in surrender.

“I thought you would already be downstairs with the king, Lord Renly,” Davos said.

“I had to get my costume just right.” Renly looked between them. “Are you a pirate, Ser Davos?”

“Indeed I am.”

“You picked matching costumes,” Renly noticed with a smile, but the observation only held his attention for a second before he wheeled around. “Let’s go!”

Since he stormed ahead of them, Stannis had no chance to say that the matching had been purely accidental – as far as he knew, he realised. He _had_ complained to Davos about the uncomfortable trousers he’d tried on a few days before. Glancing briefly at Davos, he wondered if it had influenced his choice.

 _No, I think not._ The costume of pirate would come naturally to Davos’ mind, anyway, especially if he was using it to poke fun at the gossip at court that always focused on his disreputable past, even though Davos made no attempt to hide any part of it and had paid the price in the form of his fingers, which even now that he wore a costume still sat against his chest in their small leather bag.

Stannis forbade himself to indulge in the pleasant thought that more of the crowd would figure the same as Renly had. The Stranger’s Night was, of course, a time of lax moral and rules and thus exactly the sort of festivity at which you might decide to wear a matching costume with a half-secret paramour and watch excited rumours fly. Stannis did not play such games, though, and Davos was not his lover.

-

By the time they approached the courtyard, Stannis and Davos had caught up with Renly, who had the disadvantage of his heavy costume and shorter legs. Even inside the windowless hallway, Stannis could already hear dim laughter, conversation, and music. When Renly opened the thick oak-wood door, it seemed like an entrance to another world. Merry voices competed with fiddlers and flutists for attention. The walls of the castle had been dressed in colourful flower garlands that shed petals onto the ground, adding a sweet smell to the humid summer night air. The yard was lit up by hundreds of torches, the shadows of the guests flickering in a light, hot wind. In the middle of the courtyard, near a hundred couples were dancing, lords and ladies in fantastical dress whirling and fighting for the spots at the edge of the dancing crowd so their costumes might be admired more closely by as many onlookers as possible. To the right before the closed stables stood benches and tables for courtiers and retainers to sit and eat or rest, with the royal dais built of fresh wooden boards. To the left was a whole spread of food and drink laid out between scattered blossoms on wide tables.

While Renly zipped away towards a gaggle of children crowded around plates with candied fruits, Stannis stayed far out of the reach of those dancing and drinking, pressing as close to the wall as he could to make his way over to the dais of the royal family. Davos followed behind him, but broke away before Stannis had reached the table and instead slid up to one of the benches, greeting a few of the guards stuffing their faces with roasted meat.

Only Stannis’ goodsister and her brother were on the dais at the moment. Being twins, they had of course opted for matching costumes. He figured they were supposed to be elven-creatures of some sort, the kind that appeared in the myths of Old Valyria, for they wore shimmering silk robes and their hair was decorated with thin strings from which hung small silver and golden stars. They were beautiful and unapproachable as usual, lost in some conversation of their own. Stannis greeted them with a curt nod and Cersei acknowledged him with a glance, her brother not at all.

“Stannis! I thought I would have to come drag you out of your room myself.”

Stannis turned to see Robert. He was dressed up with grey wings strapped to his shoulders that looked unwieldy and almost swept a few plates off a lower table when he closed in on Stannis, with horns strapped to his forehead and dressed all in silver chain mail.

“An ice dragon?” Stannis asked doubtfully.

“Looks great, but shit for dancing,” Robert said critically. “You’ll have to do the honours in my stead.”

“I think not,” Stannis gave back. He now had an idea who had encouraged Renly to devise his unpractical costume.

Robert settled down next to him. Stannis noticed only now that he had a cushioned stool instead of a chair to accommodate the wings. In front of him on the table sat a plate with half-eaten food and a handful of painted wood and steel blossoms, interspersed with a few worked out of more precious metals with colourful stones. Cersei and Jamie had their own piles. The flowers were a token given by secret admirers, another coquettish game with decency, though any high-ranking lady and lord could expect a few to end up on their table just because everyone knew it would look bad for them if they ended up totally without marks of attention, and that their wrath would likely fall on their insufficiently enamoured retainers. As there were no names attached, pitching a flower on the table or sending a servant to do so was no great hardship, anyway. Of course, Robert, Cersei, and Jamie were liable to have true admirers as well, all being very handsome and personable when they wanted to be, but that was really secondary.

When he was young, Stannis had found this part of the festivities exciting, hoping that when he was an adult that he would get a flower from someone. He’d imagined how he would go about figuring out who the person who liked him was like they did in the songs. As an adult, he had long realised that this tradition, too, was only another convoluted courtly game. Besides, he did not aim to be the sort of man who had admirers, anyway, and planned to stay in his seat all evening, leaving no chance for anyone to surreptitiously sneak a flower for him on the table.

It seemed Robert had other plans, though.

“You know as well as me that it’s tradition that you have to dance at least once. I even did with my wings! I don’t care to listen to people laughing about my brother with the stick up his arse all week. Just pick anyone.” He twisted his head. “Where is that onion knight? Davos!”

Davos, sitting on the edge of the table next to a minor lord in ragged peasant’s clothes and an attractive guard with a flower crown perched on his long hair dressed in some Free City garb, looked up to the dais and excused himself. Robert laughed as he approached.

“A brigand, I see.”

“And a dragon, your Highness?”

“I beat them, and now I get to wear their hide.” Robert showed his teeth in a grin before he gestured at Stannis. “Onion knight, save my brother from more bad words and dance with him, or ask someone for him as his knight. I have to assume a man of your repute has maybe danced once or twice. Beware that my brother has feet of lead, though.”

Davos looked at Stannis for confirmation. Stannis sat frozen for a moment, wondering if Robert had noticed any feelings that Stannis thought to have hidden well, but Robert was already distracted by the beautiful daughter of a Tyrell bannerman who had come to offer him a taste of Oldtown plum wine from their farms.

“I don’t think your brother would notice if you don’t dance,” Davos pointed out quietly as Stannis stepped off the dais to his side.

“Not now, but he’s right that people will talk. I don’t care, but he does.”

It was a smaller price to pay to dance now instead of listening to his brother complain about it, though Stannis wondered if he had thought so if Robert had not now hand-matched him with Davos.

“Then we should join in, unless you would like me to ask someone in your stead?”

“No, you…”

 _You will do_ , Stannis had wanted to say, but it sounded much more callous than he wished for, and all the other words he could think of too honeyed. A more charming man than him might have said them and made it sound good, but Stannis found them stuck in his throat. Thankfully, Davos understood what his clipped answer meant and simply nodded his head.

Stannis left the trident leaning by the dais under the watchful eye of a guard and followed Davos through the crowd. When they had reached the dancers, Davos offered his hand, which Stannis grabbed firmly and with no particular plan what to do with it. The musicians were playing something that sounded like music from the Free Cities to Stannis’ ears, which laid outside of the narrow boundaries of his own dance education. He saw quite a few lords and ladies floundering, in fact, but Davos didn’t seem to mind that no one had told him the steps. He simply moved with the music, holding on to Stannis’ hands with both of his own while keeping a respectable distance of about an arm’s length between them.

There was nothing particularly practiced or even seductive in the way his body moved, and yet, Stannis found it difficult to take his eyes off him, fascinated by the beauty of that sober simplicity. Davos smiled as he urged Stannis to turn on the thrill of a flute. He seemed to enjoy the music.

 _At least that much I could do_ , Stannis thought, carefully stepping from one foot to the other. He had always thought of dancing as a complicated sequence of steps matched to a melody in a way he had never been able to marry in his head, but if it was just moving his body with the rhythm, thinking of it like the beat of a marching drum, it was easier, and it became more so when Davos looked happy to see him try.

The melancholic notes of the song faded away too quickly and were followed by the lively tones of a saltarello, a fairly new type of dance from the courts of northern Dorne. Davos looked uncertain as, around them, the pairs parted to stand next to each other.

“I don’t know this dance.”

“I do,” Stannis said. “I can show you.”

He cursed himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth, which had only escaped him because he had not wanted this moment to be over with yet. He knew the steps, but that did not translate to much. Still, Davos looked expectant as he pivoted to Stannis’ side, matching the other dancers, holding only one of his hands now. Stannis could not bear to usher them off to the sidelines without at least trying.

“It’s not complicated. Put your inside foot forward, then bring the outer one to the front with a kick.”

He did, and Davos followed his example. Davos’ jumps were lighter, but less certain.

“Kick the inside leg outward, then the outside leg inward.”

This, too, they executed, Davos looking at the dancers surrounding them for pointers.

“Three steps back so you don’t end up across the yard by the end,” Stannis said, finding himself repeating words the instructor had spoken when Robert had brought him to court a few months back. “Then part, and each dancer turns around themselves, before they hold hands again. Repeat, and then I dance a circle around you, repeat again, and you dance around me. Then the whole sequence.”

“I think I can remember that,” Davos said.

He did make a fair few mistakes on the first set, kicking the wrong leg out, pulling forward when Stannis led back, but by the time the second one began, he seemed to have figured out the steps. Stannis was impressed how fast he had committed them to memory, but even more surprised by the fact that he himself found he enjoyed the dance. The silly jumping and kicking had quickly catapulted the saltarello out of the list of dances he usually tolerated, and it was not quite as fascinating as dancing face to face with Davos had been. Still, he understood the appeal for the very first time as he walked around Davos, who was watching him with an amused twinkle in his eyes, swaying happily in place, and as Davos skipped around him on quick feet, and especially the moment when he could take Davos’ hand again after they were parted. Perhaps these foolish periods of impatience were what made the dance appealing to lovers.

The next song was a simple country dance, the sort that had them turning to each other again, with a rather simplistic set of steps that Davos also knew and even Stannis could hardly miss. They swayed among the other couples into the ring of light around a torch. It was only then that Stannis noticed Davos’ face had grown red and was damp at the hairline.

“Are you well?”

“Just wearing too much for such a hot night and such spirited dances. I could use some water.”

Stannis’ revealing, torn shirt did indeed provide him with some fresh air that Davos did not have, much as he found it inappropriate. With a turn, Stannis led them to the edge of the space on which the dancers moved, mournful that this would probably be the end of dancing for tonight, or ever. Still, he didn’t wish Davos to be uncomfortable.

When he let go off Davos’ hands, it seemed to open up his sight of the rest of the world again. Only now did he realise that a lot of eyes were on them. Stannis pressed his lips into a tight line. It was not the first time he had danced and people knew that Davos was a close confidant. Retainers danced with their lords and ladies quite often. What was the point of all this staring? He turned on his heel and pushed into the crowd, trusting Davos to follow him.

Davos picked up a cup from the royal table when Stannis gestured at it and filled it from a decanter. Stannis grabbed his trident again for want of something to do with his hands as he watched Davos down water and wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Stannis...”

Renly’s voice was plaintive. Stannis glanced down from the dais to see him standing on the dusty ground, pulling unhappily at his antlers, just as Stannis had suspected he would do some time into the evening.

“Are they too heavy?” he asked, raising his brows.

Renly pouted, but then nodded his head, holding his antlers with both hands.

“Stags shed their antlers from time to time, don’t they, Lord Renly?” Davos asked, leaning down to him. “I’m sure it’s fine if you take them off to play with your friends. The longer the night grows, the more people will start losing pieces of their costumes, you see. I might take off my jacket, too. It’s much too warm.”

“I can’t get them off myself, they’re laced in the back,” Renly said, fidgeting with the thin leather bands.

“I will do it,” Stannis said, reaching out, but Renly drew his head back.

“No, you can’t take them off _here_. My friends are watching.”

“What does it matter?” Stannis asked, irritated. “They will see you without them.”

“I don’t want them to watch,” Renly just repeated, squaring his shoulders.

Stannis took a deep breath, scowling at the boy. Renly had a habit of mixing the entirely outlandish logic of children with the stubbornness that was a trait in Stannis and Robert, too, and it was a combination he found particularly difficult to deal with.

“Come, Lord Renly, I’ll take them off for you inside,” Davos said, pointing in the direction of a servant’s entrance to the west of the stable doors.

Stannis gave Davos an impatient look for indulging this nonsense, but Davos just smiled at him. He had always handled children well, or perhaps it was just that he treated them more naturally than many at court, making in the end not much difference between Renly and a scullery boy except for the title he addressed him with. It could have been insulting, but Stannis thought it was the better approach.

“Fine,” Stannis said.

He watched Renly and Davos leave, but his attention was soon diverted by Lord Penrose, one of the Baratheon bannermen, who wanted to speak of Storm’s End with him, where his son had just been promised the role of castellan. It was a sore topic with Stannis. Storm’s End should have been his by all rights and though he did not begrudge his brother having his own inheritance, being banished to Dragonstone was a slight by Robert, who already liked their younger brother more than Stannis. Granted, Stannis did understand why Renly was so pleasing to Robert and so many others, since he was a companionable and joyful boy. However, Robert had been just as agreeable at his age, from what Stannis remembered, and the thought of Renly and him in the future being just as much at odds as him and Robert were was not a comfortable one. Storm’s End would not help with that.

When Lord Penrose finally stepped away, Stannis realised Davos and Renly had still not returned. _How difficult could it be to take off a headdress for a man who deals with sailor’s knots?_ But perhaps Renly was trying to talk Davos into another idea of his. He could see the boy wanting to change costumes entirely now that his had to be taken apart, or steal something from the kitchens to impress his friends, and while Davos might argue against it, the one matter in which Renly did diverge from a scullery boy was that Davos did not have the authority to simply tell him ‘no’. It would be better if he ordered Renly back into the courtyard, Stannis decided.

He pushed past a few scattered groups of chatting courtiers to get to the door. The hallway he stepped into was cold and cramped, lit up only with a few simple torches so the servants did not stumble over their own feet.

“Lord Stannis!”

He turned his head and froze. Davos stood behind him, bent, swaying as he held on to the wall. Blood had trickled down his neck from a wound colouring his hair red, all the way down from a spot over his right ear.

“There were two men, they took Renly! This way!” he gasped out, gesturing too his right.

Stannis had fought in too many battles to waste a single moment. He could have fetched the guards, but it would have taken too long, and it seemed like Davos may have been unconscious, so they had already lost time. He thought about throwing away the trident he was still holding, considering how heavy it was, but it was the only weapon he had. _It will have to do._ The thing was made of solid metal, so it would hopefully hold up in a fight.

Stannis ran and heard Davos follow with unsteady steps.

The hallway went straight at first, but then split. Halting, Stannis stared down both directions as if he could intimidate the empty air into telling him where his brother had been taken.

“There!”

Stannis followed the point of Davos’ finger. A piece of deer fur hung torn on a nail sticking out of an old door. Stannis launched himself forward.

At the end of the hallway, a door spilled them out into the Red Keep’s godswood. It had rained in the morning, so the ground was still soft. Hasty footsteps had disturbed the grass. Leading past blooming bushes and the tall stems of alders and black cottonwood, Stannis followed them as quickly as he could without making too much noise.

“Gods be damned – stop it, you brat!”

Under the eyes of the giant oak heart tree, Renly had dug his teeth into the arm of one of his black-clad attackers. There were two men, as Davos had said, and both had their backs turned to them.

Stannis led with the trident, ramming it right between the shoulder blades of the man currently holding Renly. He let out an ear-splitting scream and dropped Renly to the ground.

“Renly, here!”

From the corner of his eyes, Stannis saw Renly stagger to his knees and stumble towards Davos, who grabbed him and pulled him backwards into the bushes to give Stannis room to fight with his unwieldy weapon. The second man, whose face was covered by a wooden mask carved into a smile, had drawn a sword and stepped forward quickly, out of the range of the tips of the trident. Stannis just managed to dodge a swing of the blade, then brought up the trident and used its long stem to block another slash. When the sword connected to the trident’s handle, he put his whole weight on his toes and threw himself forward. His opponent lost his balance and Stannis loosened the grip of one hand and whirled the trident around. Its blunt end slammed into the attacker’s head and sent him moaning into the grass.

He whirled around looking for the other man, but Davos had already taken his sword and stood on his back with one heavy foot to keep him down. Stannis was just about to ask him to go get help when the door from the castle opened to admit a scared-looking maid and a couple of guards. It seemed like their fight had drawn attention, maybe by the clamour or because someone had chanced to look out one of the windows that showed the godswood.

“Tie these men up and bring them to the dungeons. Make sure they don’t die. Varys will want to talk to them,” Stannis commanded, wiping sweat from his brow with his free hand.

As Stannis stepped away from the attackers, Renly ran towards him and hugged him tightly around the waist, looking pale as a sheet. With a heavy, shuddering sigh, Stannis rammed the bloodied tips of the trident into the wet earth.

-

Davos’ chambers were next to Stannis’, connected by a door, where a spouse might usually have staid had Stannis had one, but which his onion knight had occupied as his first retainer ever since they had come to the Red Keep. Tonight, however, his bedroom had been taken over by Renly.

“Robert will place ten guards around his room wherever he stays, but...”

Even Stannis, who prided himself on a lack of sentimentality, was reluctant to send the scared boy off to his own chambers. They still didn’t know who had orchestrated the attack – even though Varys of course had a couple of theories, mostly connected to Targaryen loyalists –, so any servant or guard might be involved, and he could understand that Renly would think it difficult to find rest among strangers right now. Better to keep an open door between his and his brother’s room and have himself and Davos close-by.

It seemed, at least, that Renly had gone to sleep now. Stannis stepped away from the doorway.

“That’s not even worth discussing, my lord,” Davos said with a faint gesture of his hand. “Of course Lord Renly stays here after all that happened tonight.”

Maester Pycelle had bound his battered head and told Davos to lie down, but so far he had been nervously checking that Renly was settled into the bed and listening in to Stannis’ and Robert’s conversation as well as giving his own account of what had happened to the King, Stannis, and the Master of Whisperers. According to Davos, he had just taken off Renly’s antlers when someone had grabbed him from behind and covered his mouth. Before he’d had a chance to free himself, a second man had taken Renly and Davos’ head had been bashed into the wall. When he’d finally managed to fight back to full consciousness and stumble towards the door to the courtyard, Stannis had greeted him halfway.

“I do apologise,” he said now, as Stannis was busy fighting his way out of the tattered shirt. He was still in this cursed costume.

“Apologise?” Stannis echoed, balling up the shirt in his hands.

“I could have prevented what happened if I’d been quicker to realise that someone was coming for us. They looked just like guests, but I keep thinking I might have done more. I should have worn a blade with my costume, I could have stuck it into the man who was holding me...”

“You aren’t my brother’s guard,” Stannis said resolutely, kicking out of the boots and trousers as well. They clinked and jingled at the motion.

Davos wasn’t a fighter at all, he had often said so. Even when he had accompanied Stannis’ fleet, he had scouted the best places to attack from or kept their fleet on course, but never engaged with a sword. A knight he might be, but he had not come by the title in the usual way, neither by prowess on the battlefield nor by belonging to a family who could have educated him in the martial arts. And what did it matter? Another man with a sword could not have saved the defence of Storm’s End for Stannis, but a smuggler had.

“Still, I ask forgiveness.”

“I’m not giving it. You did nothing wrong.”

Davos gave a quiet chuckle at Stannis’ stubbornness. “Thank you, my lord.” He looked him up and down. “Did you really not need the Maester’s attention at all?”

“I doubt I will have more than bruises,” Stannis said, pulling on a loose shirt and trousers. The fresh, cool clothing felt good on his skin.

“It’s amazing you managed to win with a trident of all things. Do knights get trained to fight with such weapons? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Hardly. It has sharp points, though, and it’s not so different from a lance, though the balance is not the same.”

If Davos’ compliments left his stomach fluttering a little, Stannis hoped it did not show.

“You really would make a great merling king,” Davos mused, grasping the arms of the chair he sat in, preparing to push himself up. “I should leave you to rest.”

“I think Renly would not mind if you were here, too,” Stannis said. The boy had a good rapport with Davos since Davos had made the long evenings of the siege shorter for him with his onions and tall tales from the sea. “Besides, you are now involved. Someone might want you dead for this. I’d rather you stay here.”

It seemed his knight was not so eager to go, for he did not need more convincing. He nodded his head very carefully.

“I will sleep on the ground,” he said. “Let me fetch a blanket.”

“Nonsense. My bed is big enough for five people.”

Stannis said the words before his timidity could get the better of his reason. He was not wrong and he did not say it under false pretences. He was hardly going to indulge in this useless infatuation with his child brother in the next room over with not even a closed door between them.

Davos looked surprised. “If you are fine with that.”

“Yes,” Stannis said curtly, for fear of revealing too much.

“I should still change out of these clothes, though.”

Davos stood. As he did, a pouch at his belt loosened. His costume had gone through a lot it had not been meant for tonight. The black leather bag opened as it hit the floor and a wooden flower with yellow blossoms clicked on the ground and drew a half-circle on the stone. They both looked at it in silence for a moment.

“You were going to give that to someone tonight?” Stannis asked, picking it up.

He could hear how tight his own voice was. Jealousy sprung on him unexpected and unfettered. The evening had been much too long to still be fully in control.

“I was.”

Davos looked sheepish as he watched Stannis turn the flower in his hand. He had no right to be upset, not even after the dance, not after the smiles Davos had given him. Davos had been ordered to join Stannis by the king, what option had he had? With a resolute gesture, Stannis pushed the flower back at Davos, holding it on his outstretched palm.

“Well, take it,” he muttered. “It’s yours.”

Davos reached for the flower, but stopped himself. Then, he bent Stannis’ fingers close around it.

“No, it’s where it was supposed to be at the end of this evening,” he said softly.

Stannis dared not to breathe for a moment. He’d told himself not to hope for so long. Finally, he managed at least to close the flower tightly in his fist. He wondered if his face looked as red as it felt hot.

“I see,” he managed, heart in his throat. “I didn’t know.”

Davos watched him a while before he got up on his toes, one hand on Stannis’ shoulder, leaving him a moment to back off if he wanted to. He did not and so Davos kissed him.

“It’s not that surprising. You need to learn the sailors’ stories, my lord,” Davos said. “Every pirate wants a merling lover.”

Stannis shook his head at him, hiding a smile as he pulled Davos into his arms.


End file.
